People have disagreed concerning that which necessarily entails temporal events—namely, that which is never devoid of temporal events (1) and must necessarily be accompanied by them. Must it itself be temporally originated, or need it not be temporally originated, such that it may instead be eternal, regardless of whether it is the Necessary Being, self-sufficient and independent of all else, or a contingent being? Or should a distinction be drawn between the Necessary Being in Himself, self-sufficient and independent of all else, and a contingent being dependent (2) upon another?

There are three positions:

The first is the position of those schools of speculative thinkers and theologians which maintain that it is impossible for the Lord to have always been active (3), and impossible for the Lord to act and speak by His will and power (4) in pre-eternity, and that (5) this is impossible. They hold two positions concerning whether it is possible (6) for His activity to continue forever into the future.

The second [position] (7) is that of the philosophers who maintain that something other than Allah is eternal—whether the celestial spheres, the intellects, or something else. They regard the Lord [Glorified is He] (8) as a cause that necessitates by His very essence, unable to bring anything into existence or alter anything in the world.

Rather, the true substance of their doctrine is that temporal events did not proceed from Him; instead, [they proceeded] and came into existence (9) without any originator.

The third [position] (10) is that of the leading authorities of the religious communities, who say, “Allah is the Creator of